


Just a Buncha Ducks

by LaoisePotter, Thatonegayone



Category: The Prom - Sklar/Beguelin/Martin
Genre: F/F, The spiritual successor to the hermit crabs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-19 10:34:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22276219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaoisePotter/pseuds/LaoisePotter, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatonegayone/pseuds/Thatonegayone
Summary: It's just a buncha ducks
Relationships: Alyssa Greene/Emma Nolan
Comments: 9
Kudos: 46





	Just a Buncha Ducks

It was a complete mistake. She never meant for things to go this far, but there’s only so many times you can say no. She shouldn’t have stopped her car to help that day. 

And now Emma was being followed around by a gaggle of ducklings who thought she was their mother. 

She was in a panic as the eight ducklings quacked and peeped at her, chasing her around the empty country road. 

“Please stop. Where’s your mom?” She bent down to get on the same level as the birds, one climbing onto her boot and pecking at her shoelace. Emma picked up the duckling and brought it up to her face, eye to eye with the baby. “I’m not ready to be a mom.” 

“Queep,” it replied.

Emma pulled out her phone and dialed as the ducks played around her feet. “Gran, do ducks do that imprinting thing?” 

“Emma, how am I supposed to know?” Betsy sighed and Emma heard the phone be put down on the counter. “Hold on.” The soft clicking of a keyboard typing sounded over the line for a few moments. “According to Google, yes. Why?” 

“I went to help some across the street and now they’re not leaving me alone. What do I do?” 

There was silence for a few seconds, then another sigh. “Just bring them home. We’ll find a home for them this weekend.” 

Emma held her phone to her ear with her shoulder as she scooped up the ducklings one by one and carried them to her car. “What about school? I can’t just walk in with eight fricking ducks. I don’t want to be the Duck Girl.” 

“Just get them home, we will figure it out. I love you.” 

“Love you too, Gran.” Emma shook her head at the ducklings watching her curiously as she climbed into the cab of her truck. “What am I going to do with all of you?” 

She got a small quack in response.

— — 

Emma had just finished feeding her ducks, and was watching them with a smile as they paddled around her bathtub. A couple of the chicks were masters of escape and took every chance they had to slip away unless she was watching them at all times, so the day passed quickly without her notice. It was after sunset when she was pulled out of her daze by her phone vibrating in her pocket. 

“Hey babe,” Emma said after pressing the green button on the screen. “What’s up?” 

“Not to sound like Kaylee, but you haven’t been answering any of my texts. Are you okay?” Alyssa asked, her voice was worried and hushed. Thanks to her mother’s very early set bedtime for Alyssa, she was able to talk to Emma, but had to keep quiet so they wouldn’t get in trouble — it was much worse when they were a secret, but neither girl was going to risk their nightly phone calls by being overheard anyways.

Emma laughed and looked at the ducks splashing around in the tub. “Yeah, sorry, I’m fine. Today was just a little weird and I’m trying to figure some stuff out.” 

“What kind of stuff?” 

“Okay, so. I need you to hear me out, this is not an easy thing for me to say.” Emma took a breath and paused, trying to figure out how to break the news of her eight new feathered children to her girlfriend.

“Emma? Is this — are you breaking up with me?” Alyssa’s voice was shaking, and Emma’s face fell as she heard a small sniffle. 

“Oh my god! NO. I wouldn’t — I mean — NO. No, God, I’m so sorry for scaring you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me ‘Lys. Please check me for a stroke if I ever try and break up with you again.” Emma shook her head, making a mental note to check how she prefaced things in the future. “I just — Well. I saved some ducklings and now they think I’m their mom.” 

“You — wait, what?” 

“I helped some ducklings cross the road and they imprinted on me and so now we have eightkids, congratulations.” 

“Emma.” Emma could hear Alyssa sitting up and turning on the lamp next to her bed. “Put me on FaceTime right now.” 

Emma hit the button, she smiled wide when she saw Alyssa. “Hi.” 

“Hi,” Alyssa said with a smile, and they both stilled for a moment, just looking at each other with love in their eyes. “So, show me the babies?” 

Emma flipped the camera and laughed at Alyssa’s delighted gasp. 

“Baby, they’re so friggin cute. I love them. What are their names? How long do we have them? Can I come and play with them tomorrow? Are they gunna sleep with you tonight? How soft are they? Which one is your favorite?” Alyssa rattled off questions. 

“They’re Charlie, Bill, Percy, Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, and Pancake.” Emma did her best to zoom in on each of her duck’s faces as she called out their names, but only managed to get her phone wet. “I wanted to name them all after the Weasley kids, but then I was half way through naming them and realized there was only seven kids, but eight ducks, so Pancake.” 

“No Alyssa Junior?” Alyssa laughed as she watched the ducks start to jump out of the tub and surround Emma’s feet. 

“Well I was going to do it, but Pancake wasn’t responding to it, and so I went with the other name because breakfast is your favorite and I was thinking about that date we took to the IHOP a couple towns over and spent like four hours eating pancakes and it just meant a lot.” 

Alyssa was quiet for a beat, rubbing her nose, and Emma smiled as she heard sniffles coming from her girlfriend. “Goddammit, babe. I love you.” 

“I love you too, ‘Lys.” 

“You’re ridiculous, you know that right?”

“I know.” Emma scooped up Ginny and Pancake and walked to her bedroom, careful to not let any of the other ducklings get caught underfoot. “Alright, I gotta lift these lil quackers up into bed. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” 

“Night baby, have fun with our kids.” Alyssa yawned and ended the call.

— —

One week later, as she was breaking up a fight between Charlie and Fred, Emma heard her grandmother’s door open and crash shut with a loud BANG.

“EMMA!”

“Shelby?!” Panic rose in her throat as she scrambled to her feet and down the stairs to find her friend with her back against the front door, panting, a wild mix of anger and fear in her eyes. “What happened, are you okay?”

“NO, I’m not okay! Why didn’t you tell me you had a killer duck in your neighborhood?”

“Why didn’t I what?” 

Shelby pushed her hair out of her face and jabbed a finger over her shoulder. “There’s a duck on your porch that chased me for half a goddamn mile, Nolan, why the hell isn’t there a sign up on the street? ‘Killer duck, might be reproducing’, isn’t that what those make-way-for-ducklings signs are for? And…” Shelby’s eyes flicked downward and her expression fell eerily neutral. “Emma Nolan. Why in the hell are you double-fisting ducklings right now.”

Emma’s already wrinkled brows furrowed further. “What?”

“Ducklings, you moron, why are you holding ducklings?!” Shelby snapped, pointing at Emma’s hands.

Baffled, Emma looked down and realized she was still holding Charlie and Fred. “Oh. Um...for science?”

“Queepeep,” Fred supplied unhelpfully.

Shelby’s hand tightened into a fist and she took a deep breath. “Is that their mother out there?”

A silence falls for just a couple moments, and then Emma hears faint, incessant quacking from the other side of the door and her eyes go wide. “Oh, SHI—”

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what to say here, so you're welcome? 
> 
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
